Allergens Be Gone: How to Allergy-Proof Your Lawn

It’s hard to stay indoors during the summer. With the warm temperatures and sunny skies, many of us like to work in their yard. While it’s beautiful outside during this time of year, this wonderful weather doesn’t come without a price. For many, this time of year can be a miserable one. The sneezing, runny nose, and itchy ears can quickly put a damper on that summertime fun. It can be hard to enjoy the outdoors, let alone your yard if you’re too busy holding on to a box of tissues. Luckily, there are some tactics you can use so you can enjoy your yard, even during allergy season.

According to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, an estimated 36 million Americans have seasonal allergies. If you fall into this statistic and are looking for ways to allergy-proof your lawn, check out these tips that can help you allergy-proof your yard.

1. Eradicate or “choke out” highly allergenic weeds from your yard. These include dandelion, nettle, and annual bluegrass. If you fertilize your lawn to grow thick grass, you can choke out these pesky weeds.

2. Make sure that your lawn is mowed often, and is kept short. You don’t want your lawn to be any taller than 2 inches. By mowing often, you can cut off the tops of those leaves of grass before they start to produce any pollen and flowers.

3. Stay away from doing any yard work on dry, windy days or on days that the allergen index is high. Instead choose days that have a low index for allergens, or an hour or so after rainfall.

4. If your allergies are severe, it may be a good idea to replace any allergenic plants with less or non-allergenic plants. Just remember to replace a plant with a female, not a male plant which produces pollen.

5. Do you compost? If so, make sure you keep compost bins away from your house and garden. Having a compost pile is like having your very own mold habitat, so if you are allergic to mold, make sure you store it elsewhere.

6. If you have severe allergies to grass, you may want to remove all of the grass, or most of it, from around your home. While this may sound extreme, there are other alternatives available that look attractive, such as wood chips, stone, or ivy.

7. If you don’t want to remove any of your male trees from your yard, you could always pay for a sex change. You heard right. A skilled arborist should be able to help you out with this. In as little as one season, your pollen-producing male tree will change into a female tree that’s pollen-free.

Lastly, do what you can to protect yourself. You can only go so far “allergy-proofing” the outdoors. If possible, wear sunglasses, long sleeves and pants while working in your yard. By doing this, you can help limit a number of allergens that come in contact with your skin. Once you are finished, make sure you leave your shoes at the door, change your clothes, and take a shower so you can remove any allergens that may be attached to you.

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